“I got out of bed and went to the kitchen. I keep my manuscript in a box int he oven. I took it out, set it on the kitchen table, ... Read more

Year 2 of MFA. Critical Paper #3 I digress. I do. And, I like to. I have long loved writers who lead me through a story without predictability, who take ... Read more

Year 2 of MFA. Critical Paper #2 Until around page forty or so, I was feeling concerned that I’d picked The River Why by David James Duncan to read for ... Read more

Year 2 of MFA. Critical Paper #1 So what lessons can I take away from Stewart O’Nan’s Last Night At The Lobster as a writer studying other writers to become ... Read more

Black Swan Green A year in the life of Jason Taylor: thirteen, British, equally naïve and gifted with insight, and a stammerer. Love this book! Honest. Well-crafted. Full of popular ... Read more

While fall turned to an unprecedented winter here in Washington, and then a wet, violent spring, and only now the promise of summer is in the air, I read and ... Read more

Food is the center of our lives. It’s necessary for survival, and a source of personal pleasure and communion. Of course our relationship to food is complex. In my own ... Read more

“He sulks, or is it lonely sadness in that profile? She is distanced and distressed. Love engraves a profile definitely as the mint does on a coin. She is ashamed ... Read more

I have affection for masterful use of repetition. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I grew up in a musical and religious household, that I learned ... Read more